Obligatory Awkward First Blog Post

Starting a blog is a fairly awkward thing to do. It's essentially a declaration that you have achieved a level of boredom that mandates that you now much post all of the things that weren't worth sharing previously, spam them out to the general public (okay, my family), and expect that they suddenly begin to care about these things that you have to say.

So here I am! With lots of thoughts that you were all missing out on for so long. Who knows how you have survived so long without them.

I've kept two blogs in the past, both while living and traveling in Spain (and other places in Europe). The point of those blogs were a little more self-explanatory, since there seem to be actual stories to tell when you're backpacking through Europe and having near death experiences in the mountains of Spain (don't eat almonds off the tree, folks).

The purpose of starting this blog is to track my progress and adventures with running and triathlon training as I progress through this. My friend introduced me to blogging through this site a few days ago and it's more or less what I've been looking for: somewhere to write and (most importantly) something to write about. I've been missing it since ending my Spain blogs, but my day-to-day life doesn't tend to produce enough content to keep a blog. And I don't want to know what would happen if I were just left to write about my opinions.

So here we are!

Just a little background on who I am and how I got to where I am today (for those of you who don't know me, if anyone):

I'm currently 24 (going on 25 in September). I started swimming competitively when I was 7 years old, and competitive swimming pretty much was my entire athletic life by the time I was 13. Eleven practices a week, 2 hours each. Swim meets every weekend. When I sweated, it smelled like chlorine. To this day, I can track down a pool like a bloodhound simply because of that smell. I swam.....a lot. My last 4 years of swimming were spent swimming for the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Eagles.

College swimming had its distinct ups and downs. I met a whole lot of great people, and got to swim on the same college team as my little brother for 2 years. I qualified for nationals. I found an indestructible polyester swim suit sophomore year that is still holding on for dear life after 6 years.

I also spent a tremendous amount of time sick, and hurt, and sick and hurt. And then rehabing and icing and heating. And rehabing. And aching. My senior and final year of competitive swimming was spent mostly in the athletic training room balancing on a ball to rehab my ankle while icing both shoulders and one knee. I had EMTs called for me around thanksgiving because of a partially collapsed airway in my lung due to an infection in my lungs, that came about as the result of 3 months of bronchitis.

All to say that perhaps after 15 seasons of swimming, number 16 was one too many.

What followed my final year of competitive swimming was a strong aversion to doing anything (I could probably end the sentence here but we'll continue...) in athletics. I ran a couple times after the season ended before realizing I didn't really care. I did one open water swim during the summer. The idea of having to be competitive and worry about best times was slightly nauseating.

Complicating any dreams of a workout plan was my departure to Jaen, Spain for my first post-college job, teaching English in Spain. For the second half of 2011, my primary concern was getting myself sorted out in a brand new country rather than doing anything athletically.

This isn't going to be a sob story about how I got fat and found God and am now skinny and a guest star on Oprah, if you're waiting for that. Just a little bit of background. Let's fast forward just in case it's starting to feel like that.

Upon returning to the US in summer of 2012, I was feeling that it was time to get back in the game. But not something where I would be beating myself up over the competition, or my best times like swimming ended up being. Something that I could work at little by little. Something that I was so fantastically horrible at that I literally could only get better.

And what are most swimmers terrible at? Well, anything on land. But more specifically...running!

Thus began my goal to finish a half marathon....which has taken me from a very strained 1 mile job in August 2012, to one week away from the event today....with my longest run so far being 11 miles. Also planning out a summer of triathlons....including a half ironman in August! More on all that later. This is already an excessively long and (as promised) awkward first entry.

I'm pretty new too (but I've been lurking for awhile). Welcome! Your half marathon is so soon! It's going to be such a great experience I'm sure. I ran my first in November and was on a post-race high for the next week

Welcome. You will do just fine in that 1st Half! I wish I could swim without those dad gum orange inflatable water wings, if I could and if I could ride my bike without training wheels, I would do a Tri.

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